The Forbidden Corridor pt 1

“Oi! Watch it!” Crabbe called out as you used a very steady hand to set an Exploding Snap card flat on top of three others that you had propped against each other. “It’s gonna fall!”

“No… it isn’t,” you insisted as you let go of the flat card and slowly withdrew your hand from the house of cards you were constructing on a table in the nearly empty Slytherin common room. “Would you relax? I’ve made hundreds of these.”

One of your magic-wielding Ministry minders had outfitted the Gaunt Shack with soundproofing charms on the outer walls to ensure that none of your muggle neighbors down in Little Hangleton could hear the sound of a magical child growing up on the edge of their town. And as a result, building card houses out of exploding playing cards became a favorite pastime of yours while you were left to your own devices.

Your designs started out simple but grew more complex over the years. The often volatile hobby of balancing explosive playing cards against each other in a way that ensured the structure didn’t detonate in your face had given you a set of extremely steady hands. Those same hands turned out to be infinitely useful in Potions when you had to add a very specific amount of an ingredient to a boiling cauldron.

Using a steady and delicate touch to balance the explosive cards against each other was actually the easy part for you at this point. The tricky part, as your designs grew more and more complex, was ensuring that none of the cards that were touching shared the same number. That was the whole point of the game of Exploding Snap. Cards with matching numbers would explode the whole pile if you didn’t tap them fast enough.

You carefully selected a 9 and laid it flat on top of the 3, 4, and 5 you had propped against each other to make half of a rectangle with its sides tilted inward. The 8 you just previously set down was going across the 2, 6, and 7 on the other end. Your next step was to take a 10 and lay it down in between the 8 and 9 with its edges overlapping with the other two cards in order to make a nice, flat roof for the slanted six-card rectangle.

“Almost done,” you informed your audience as you picked up a Jack and a Queen. “It just needs one last finishing touch.” You heard Goyle gasp behind you but tuned him out and held your breath as you carefully propped the two face cards against each other and gently set them on the flat three-card roof you just constructed to form a pointed roof at the very top of the structure. You stepped back then released the breath you were holding as you admired your latest creation. “Aaand finite!”

The finished ‘house’ of cards was actually a large three-story pyramid inspired by the pharaoh headdress you got nearly a week ago at the Christmas feast. You even brought the elaborate gold headpiece out and wore it during the construction in order to put yourself in a proper Pharaoh mindset. The six-card rectangle was the third and smallest of a series of three rectangles whose tilted sides gave the pyramid its four angled faces.

“Behold the Great Pyramid of Pharaoh Marvolo Gaunt!” you proudly proclaimed.

“That’s wicked!” Goyle enthusiastically remarked as he and Crabbe admired the completed card pyramid. The two large boys were impressed by your card constructing talent as their big meaty hands could never handle such delicate work. But you came to find over the last three days when you built card houses in the empty Slytherin common room together that they appreciated the next part even more.

“Okay, here…” you prompted as you handed the Ace of Wands to Goyle. “Set that against the door on the bottom.” You pointed at the Ace of Shields you had turned outward on the bottom layer of the pyramid. All the other cards had been placed with their faces down or inward in order to give your creation a more uniform exterior.

Goyle grinned and he placed the Ace of Wands on the Ace of Shields then quickly yanked his hand back and hastily backed away from the table while you and Crabbe counted down. “Three… two… one…”

BOOM! The two matching cards exploded and the hollow house of cards imploded after losing one of its bottom support walls. A chain of explosions soon followed as other matching cards made contact as the pyramid collapsed.

You slipped back behind the whooping and cheering pair of Crabbe and Goyle to avoid the cards that came flying off the table as a result of the series of explosions.

“That was so bloody cool!” Goyle exclaimed when the explosions finally died down..

“I wanna blow up the next one!” Crabbe insisted.

“I’ll make another one tomorrow,” you agreed, “But you know the deal: I build it… you guys clean up the mess. I’m gonna head to the library to continue my project.”

“Right, right,” Goyle agreed as the two of them set about gathering the scattered cards.

You returned to your room and set your pharaoh headdress on your school trunk then shouldered your school bag and headed back out into the common room.

“Remember, there should be two full decks when you’re done,” you advised the other two first years on your way out of the common room.

The winter holidays had given you a new appreciation for Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle and while you had found a number of ways to have fun with your only two yearmates who had stayed for the holidays, they didn’t exactly provide much in the way of intelligent, mentally stimulating conversation. So you assigned yourself a project in order to keep your mind sharp.

The idea came to you when you woke up on Boxing Day and stared idly at your mother’s picture on your nightstand. You knew that she had an infamous affinity for fire magic and you found yourself reflecting on how you distracted Weasley during your duel back in September by briefly setting his pajamas on fire to stop him from charging you. You hadn’t inherited your mother’s stocky build but you decided to do some research on various fire spells and see if you inherited your mother’s affinity for fire magic. Your ability to speak Parseltongue came from the Gaunt family line who inherited it from your vaunted ancestor Salazar Slytherin so it wasn’t completely out of the realm of possibility that you inherited something from your mum too.

That was one of the reasons why purebloods thought themselves superior to everyone else. If you had two magical parents then your chances of inheriting a special magical ability from one of them were literally double that of a halfblood with only one magical parent. And if your parents’ parents were all magical then your chances of inheriting something increased further. Your Parseltongue ability was an example of how certain magical abilities could skip generations. The Dark Lord was the last recorded Parselmouth in Great Britain before you were born. If your father had actually inherited the ability to speak Parseltongue from your Grandfather Morfin Gaunt then there would be a record of him being a Parselmouth and his identity wouldn’t be a secret.

So you made your way to the library and began researching various forms of fire magic. Your first instinct was to combine your mother’s special talent with your own and started your project by researching Fire Potions. You knew your way around the Potions section of the Hogwarts library better than any other section so it didn’t take you very long to find two interesting fire-related potions. The first was actually the Fire Protection Potion which would render the drinker incapable of being burned by both natural and various forms of magical fire. It was a beginner level potion that didn’t seem too difficult to brew. It made sense for you to have a supply of it on hand before you started to literally play with fire - lest you risk burning yourself.

The other potion you found was much more interesting - the Fire-Breathing Potion. The mere image of you breathing fire like a dragon had you grinning like a loon as you hastened to copy down the recipe. It seemed brewable but after reading a few warnings you saw that it was also highly dangerous. While the mint’s soothing properties would keep it from instantly melting the drinker’s tongue, it was still extremely volatile and could easily burn skin. However, you already found the solution to that problem and after a bit more probing research confirmed that if you drank a Fire Protection Potion beforehand it would serve its natural purpose and protect you from the worst effects of the Fire-Breathing Potion.

The biggest obstacle when it came to brewing the two potions was obtaining all the ingredients. Most of the ingredients were plentifully available in either your personal potion kit or the student stores but you had to owl order the bursting mushrooms and the wartcap powder. You also added salamander blood to the list since your class used a significant portion of the student stores’ supply brewing the Wiggenweld Potion.

And then finally there was the dragon horn which was the most important ingredient in the Fire-Breathing Potion. That would be the hardest and most expensive ingredient to get your hands on. Apparently, the breed of the dragon whose horn you used had an effect on the potion. For example, if you used the horn of a Swedish Short-Snout - a dragon that was known for breathing blue flame - then the fire you breathed after drinking your potion would also be blue. If it were green you might have considered it but you ultimately decided to go with a Romanian Longhorn since the extra long length of the horn meant you would have more of it to brew with. Also, it was less expensive than the horn from a dragon that would allow you to breath odd coloured fire such as the aforementioned Swedish Short-Snout or the Chinese Fireball that was known for producing balls of golden fire.

You sent Iago off with your order that evening but you knew it would be a while before your ashen feathered barred owl returned with your order.

In the meantime, you began exploring the rest of the library in search of an interesting spell that you could learn. The day after Boxing Day, you explored the Defense Against the Dark Arts section in the hopes of finding some kind of cool cursed fire. But it turned out that cursed fire was deemed too dark and too dangerous for common reading and had been sequestered away in the restricted section so that ambitious first years like yourself couldn’t get your hands on it.

The most useful thing that you were able to find on your second day in the library was the Flagrante Curse which caused objects it was cast on to burn searingly hot when touched. Not exactly fire-related but it did sound useful. The main use seemed to be a defensive measure you could use to protect your valuables. No one would steal your things if they got burned from touching them. But the most interesting thing you found was that the Flagrante Curse could also be used offensively. If you were to say, cast the Flagrante Curse on an opponent’s wand during a duel, their wand would become so hot that they wouldn’t be able to hold it without being burned. Duel over. Your opponent wouldn’t be able to cast a spell if they couldn’t hold their wand. The catch was how difficult it would be to cast the spell accurately enough to hit your opponent’s wand. Especially if the wand was in motion while your opponent was casting their own spell. That difficulty aside, you added the Flagrante Curse to your ‘To Learn’ list and spent the rest of that library session composing a page of notes on how to cast it.

“It would actually be my first curse,” you mused to yourself as you continued on your way. You learned a handful of jinxes and hexes during your first term at Hogwarts but you hadn’t learned any curses yet.

On the third day in the library you focused on the Charms section. Charms was your best subject after Potions. The first thing you found was, ironically, the Flagrate Charm. Not to be confused with the similarly sounding Flagrante Curse, the Flagrate Charm allowed you to write in midair with flaming letters. You added it to your ‘To Learn’ list and took a corresponding page of notes on how to cast it simply because writing with fiery letters sounded really cool.

You also found references to the Fire Protection Charm which was made famous during the Witch Trials. But if you were going to be accidentally setting yourself on fire and you had to choose between protecting yourself with a charm that could be dispelled or a well-brewed potion, you were going with the potion. You gave that one a pass and continued on your search.

That was when you finally hit paydirt. The Bluebell Flames. Also known as Cold Fire. The charm produced blue flames that were not only waterproof but could be touched and even picked up without causing burns. It didn’t take you long to realise that this was the spell Granger used on Professor Snape during the Quidditch match. If Granger was able to cast it then you should be able to learn it too. And since the special fire wouldn’t actually burn you it would be the perfect spell for you to use to explore your potential fire affinity.

“Now it’s time to continue the practical portion of my study,” you resolved. Today would be your second day of practical casting. Yesterday, you made different levels of progress on each of your ‘To Learn’ spells and you were eager to continue where you left off.

Your destination was the unused classroom where you confronted Granger about her actions during the Quidditch match. The same room Professor Quirrell had shown you back in September when he taught you the Stinging Jinx/Hex. You already used the unoccupied classroom for extracurricular learning before so it made sense to return there to do it again.

You set down your school bag on one of the desks and drew your wand then cast the Flagrate Charm and began writing your name in fiery green letters. Similarly to the Time-Telling Charm, the colour of the fiery letters produced by the Flagrate Charm could be influenced by the caster if they concentrated hard enough. You let out an unsatisfied grunt at the sloppy flaming ‘GAUNT’ you wrote in the air.

Honestly, the charm wasn’t even all that hard. The trick was to keep a steady stream of magic going through your wand. If you lost your concentration and disrupted the stream then you would have to cast the spell another time to start it up again. Your particular problem with the charm was your horrid penmanship. You blamed the abnormally long fifteen-inch length of your wand for this problem. It was uncomfortable drawing flaming letters in the air when your writing implement was over a foot long.

But the fifteen inch stick of aspen was the wand that had chosen you. You were connected. Like it or not, there was no getting rid of it. You’d just have to get used to it. So you spent the first few minutes of your second study session sketching flaming doodles in the air.

“It looks a little better,” you remarked after very slowly writing your name. It would still require more effort but slowing your writing down at least produced passably legible letters. You’d never use that kind of writing on an essay for class but it was progress.

Marvolo Gaunt

You left the flaming green letters of your name floating above the desk as you moved on.

The next spell you practiced was the Bluebell Flames Charm. You spent the majority of yesterday’s spellcasting session focused on this spell and finally ended it after you successfully cast the charm for the first time. Your determination not to be bested by Granger was what drove you to learn the spell that first day.

You pulled a large, empty glass potion vial out of your school bag and set it on a desk then gave your wand a wave and intoned the incantation. Blue sparks shot from the tip. But no flames.

“Damn it,” you growled as you slowed down your wand movement and made a point to enunciate each word of the Bluebell Flames Spell’s incantation.

Poof! A small patch of blue fire was dancing on the desk. That was more like it.

You reached out and carefully scooped the blue fire up into your hand. It was a strange sensation. The fire gave off warmth but it was virtually weightless and felt cool to the touch. That’s why the Bluebell Flames were also called Cold Fire. You turned your hand and dumped the blue flames into the potion vial. That part of the room was bathed in a flickering blue glow which was only slightly offset by the fainter and not quite as bright fiery green letters from the last lingering etching of your name.

With two spells down, there was only one remaining but unfortunately it was the one you had made the least progress on. By that you meant barely any. The only things you learned from your attempts at casting the Flagrante Curse was what didn’t work because you had yet to successfully cast that curse.

‘The most powerful magic is fueled by emotion.”

That’s what Professor Quirrell told you in this very room back in September when he taught you the Stinging Hex. The Flagrante Curse was also one of those spells. Your research in the library indicated that the key to casting it was to think of something you were passionate about protecting and the white hot anger you would feel if it was stolen. The burn the thief would receive from touching your cursed possession would be the magical manifestation of your anger at it being stolen. The object you were envisioning didn’t have to be what you were casting the spell on. But for the life of you, you couldn’t seem to think of anything that inspired the powerful emotions that the spell required.

And it wasn’t from a lack of trying. You tried casting the curse while thinking of your owl, the pile of galleons you were surprised to find in the Gaunt Vault at Gringotts, the Nimbus Two Thousand broomstick you bought but never got to use, your Blythe Parkin poster, and even something more abstract - your spot on the Slytherin Quidditch team. None of those things worked.

But now that you had the other two spells on your ‘To Learn’ list down, there was no avoiding trying again with the most difficult of the three.

You came up with some new ideas overnight and were anxious to try them so you pulled one of your dragon-hide gloves from your school bag. Dragon-hide was known for being thick and durable but also, and more importantly as far as your needs were concerned, heat resistant. So if you actually did manage to cast the curse you wouldn’t burn yourself. You slipped the glove on your free hand while you held your wand with the other and waved it at the glass vial with the blue fire dancing inside it that was still sitting on the desk in front of you.

The first thing you thought of was your mother’s picture. Yes, she was a **** Eater and more than likely a crazy pyromaniac but she was still your mother. Without her you wouldn’t be here. Both in the sense that she gave birth to you nearly fourteen years ago and also because her love of fire magic had inspired this study session on fire/heat-based spells. You felt your hackles rise as you imagined someone stealing that picture off your nightstand. What kind of creep steals an orphan’s only picture of their mother?

You waved your wand in a long cross pattern and called out the incantation. “Flagrante!”

Time to test it. You extended your hand and held it over the vial. You could feel the heat from the bluebell flame inside but when you reached down and touched the side of the glass vial with your gloved hand… you felt nothing. It was just room-temperature glass.

You failed again. The righteous indignation you felt at having your mother’s picture stolen wasn’t the white hot anger you needed to cast this tricky curse.

Thankfully, you came prepared and thought of something else you were protective of that you could use for the curse.

Your collection of girls’ knickers. It hadn’t meant much at first but as your collection grew so too did your fondness for the assortment of girls’ unmentionables.

Daphne and Tracey gave you theirs because you had information they wanted.

Pansy was under a compulsion to give you her knickers whenever you did her a favor. A compulsion that you managed to set even with Daphne and Tracey keeping a close eye on you.

And finally, for the only non-Slytherin entry, you caught Granger blue-handed and clashed with her in a battle of wits that saw you emerge with her pink knickers as a prize.

They were trophies for your cunning. A sign that you were a true Slytherin.

And then, of course, there was your latest acquisition, the pride of your collection. There was no manipulation there. The skimpy black knickers were freely given to you as a gift for being able to keep a secret. If your crush gave you her knickers that meant she trusted you not to tell anyone. And if she trusted you then maybe there was a chance that the older girl liked you back.

Come to think of it, Millie gave you her knickers out of her own volition too…

Anyway, the point was - you’d grown fond of your collection and the thought of some prat breaking into your trunk and stealing them pissed you off. With that anger as well as the seven knickers that compose your collection dancing through your mind. you gripped your wand tightly, waved it in a cross, and cast again.

“Flagrante!”

You felt a warm pulse go through your aspen wand with your ungloved hand then carefully reached out with your gloved one to touch the glass vial.

It felt warm.

The potion vial wasn’t burning hot like the curse was supposed to make it but this was still a great sign. You finally made some progress. That was all the motivation you needed to keep at it. If you concentrated long and hard enough then you’d eventually get it right. This was the last spell on your list. You’d stay in the classroom all night if you had to. You were going to cast this spell successfully or your name wasn’t Marvolo Gaunt.

Wait a minute…

You tensed as you looked up at the flaming green letters that were still glowing above the desk.

Marvolo Gaunt

Your name. That was truly the most valuable thing you possessed.

Before you were Marvolo Gaunt, you were just one of many orphans to get dropped off on the doorstep of Mother Goose’s Orphanage for Magical Children. It was a large crowded boot-shaped building run by Mother Goose and her assortment of Sisters who were the closest magical equivalent to Nuns. Your earliest memories were of growing up amongst the other orphans in that oversized boot. Back then, even your mother’s identity was a mystery so the old witch known as Mother Goose took it upon herself to name you Oliver Swift. It wasn’t until several years later that you figured out the reference to classic English literature.

Everything changed when you turned seven. You didn’t know it at the time, but that was when Lucius Malfoy attempted to restore his family’s standing in society by donating thousands of galleons to a war orphan fund. The war caused a lot of collateral damage. Wizards and witches had died on both sides. Entire families had been wiped out. The money from the war orphan fund went toward performing blood tests on the many children who were orphaned during the war in an effort to find members of magical families that were in danger of being lost.

Two weeks after you submitted your blood, Mother Goose pulled you aside to tell you that an official from the Ministry of Magic had come to meet with you. The tall, dark-haired, bearded man introduced himself as Pius Thicknesse from the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. He was the one who explained to you that the blood they took from you could be traced all the way back to not just the Gaunt Family but back even further to Salazar Slytherin - one of the greatest wizards of his age who had founded one of the most famous magical schools in the world. And now you were the last heir of the Gaunt Family.

The Ministry removed you from Mother Goose’s Orphanage and told you they were using what was left of the war orphan fund to get you situated in your ‘ancestral family home’.

It definitely wasn’t as glamorous as you envisioned. You still weren’t sure if going from a crowded oversized boot to a rundown shack was a step up or down. When Pius Thicknesse brought you to Little Hangleton, you were introduced to Auror Kingsley Shacklebolt who made a joke about being on ‘Shack Duty’. He had apparently spent the morning scouring your new home for magical pests and curses.

‘Shack’ somehow missed the pit of vicious snakes that were living deep under the floorboards.

And when you told Pius about the faint hissing murmuring you heard, he was so caught up in explaining what a Parselmouth was and what it meant to your family that he completely forgot to get anyone to actually do anything about the snakes. The Parseltongue confirmed what the blood test revealed… you were the last of the Gaunt Family.

Just like that you were given a new identity.

They even let you pick your new first name! Your real name.

As Oliver Swift you were just another orphan. But as Marvolo Gaunt you were special.

For years, your greatest fear had been someone coming to the Gaunt Shack and saying that the whole thing had been a mistake and that you were being sent back to the orphanage as Oliver Swift. That was why you never got around to having someone deal with that snake pit. Even though they constantly hissed threats of **** if anyone disturbed their supposed ‘treasure’, you actually found their presence to be reassuring since understanding the hissing served as a constant reminder that you were a Parselmouth - a true descendant of Salazar Slytherin and the last of the Gaunt Family. That meant you deserved to be there. You weren’t Oliver Swift anymore. You were Marvolo Gaunt. And no one. NO ONE. Was taking that name away from you.

With that last thought, you waved your wand through the green flames spelling out your name to finally extinguish it and then you felt your blood begin to boil as you imagined someone taking your name away from you.

“FLAGRANTE!” You felt a pulse of intense heat go through your wand as you cast the curse.

“What’re you doing here, Gaunt?”

You whirled around and saw Ron Weasley glaring at you from the classroom door.

“How long have you been there, Weasley?” you snapped back, annoyed at the interruption.

“Long enough to see you practicing writing your name,” Weasley answered as he pushed the door wide open and then waited a couple seconds before he stepped fully into the room.

You eyed Weasley warily. Writing your name was the first thing you did. Did that mean he was watching the whole time? Or had he just seen you wave your wand through the flaming green name before you cast your final spell and assumed based on that?

“Then you know full well what I’m doing,” you retorted. “I’m studying.”

“And I thought Percy was a big-headed git,” Weasley scoffed. “Writing your own name isn’t studying. I guess there weren’t enough Slytherins around worshipping your name so you came here to do it yourself.”

“You might not take your studies seriously but I do,” you stated. “The best thing about staying at Hogwarts for the holidays is still being able to practice magic during the break.” Weasley’s presence was unwelcome in your secluded study room so you decided to get rid of him. “Believe it or not, I’m actually glad to see you, Weasley. You see, I just learned a new curse and was thinking about finding someone to test it on.” You grinned as you raised your wand while Weasley fumbled to draw his wand from his pocket. You had him dead to rights. “You’ve just saved me the trouble by volun--”

“Flipendo!”

The blue light came out of absolutely bloody nowhere and slammed into your side. You were knocked back by the Knockback Jinx and toppled over a chair before tumbling to the floor. Weasley was the only other person in the room. But his wand wasn’t even drawn. He stopped to close the door and then advanced on you. You hastily raised your wand to defend yourself.

“Pungo!”

“Yaaah!” you yelped and dropped your wand as the Stinging Jinx hit your arm… which was on the opposite side from where the Knockback Jinx hit you. You could already feel the welt there.

Weasley was suddenly right in front of you. His wand still wasn’t drawn, which gave him two free hands that he used to haul you up off the floor then shove you back into a chair… the same chair you just knocked over… a chair that had been lying on the ground next to you… but had been set upright again in the couple seconds you looked away from it.

The next thing you knew, there was not one, but two wands, aimed at your face. The first was a twelve inch stick of ash that Weasley had finally drawn. The other was a slightly shorter stick of holly wielded by none other than Harry Potter as he came around from behind you.

Potter. That explained things. He must’ve slipped in before Weasley called your attention to him. And then while you were distracted by Weasley, Potter snuck around behind you and jinxed you. You would’ve thought that the extra light from the vial of blue fire on the desk would’ve aided you in spotting him but it looked like that wasn’t the case. Potter somehow managed to sneak by you.

“I see you learned a couple of my spells,” you noted. “Good to know you haven’t completely wasted your first term here. But attacking me while my back was turned? I expected better from a pair of brave and noble Gryffindors.”

“It’s the only way we could think of to get a straight answer from one of you slimy snakes,” Weasley insisted.

“Are you serious?” you asked. “We’ve been on break for a week and this is the best you could come up with in all that time? Wow. You really do need Granger to do all your thinking for you.”

“Don’t flatter yourself, Gaunt,” Potter said, “Our world doesn’t revolve around you. I was… busy… with something else for a few days.” No idea what that meant but you vaguely recalled a tired-looking Potter staggering into the Great Hall for breakfast on Boxing Day.

“Right…” you drawled, “And if you don’t mind me asking, how exactly did you think that ganging up on me and jinxing me in the back would help you get an honest answer out of me?”

“Oh! I was hoping he’d ask that,” Ron remarked. “Here’s another spell you might remember from back in September. Furnunculus!” The gold light struck the side of your face and caused a patch of boils to sprout out of your skin.

The jinx didn’t hurt. But your face felt warm, itchy, and uncomfortable where the boils had grown. Your default snarky demeanor evaporated and you glared at the two Gryffindors. Any amusement you had at the situation was gone.

“Your friend Malfoy got a taste of that one back in September,” Potter reminded you, “It seems only fair that you get to try it too. And there’s more where that came from if we don’t like your answers.”

You glared silently at them. Your wand was still on the floor where you dropped it. You could easily whip up a batch of Boil Cure Potion and be rid of all your new blemishes in under an hour. But if you got hit with the Pimple Jinx too many times and boils started to grow on top of each other then there was a chance that they’d rupture and leave behind some minor scars. You had no interest in spending your birthday with a face covered in potchmarks. You’d keep calm and go along with this stupid interrogation for now. And if things really got out of hand you’d tell a teacher. You normally didn’t like the idea of snitching but this was clearly against the rules.

“Did you have anything to do with the troll getting in on Halloween?” Potter suddenly asked.

“What?” Did they actually think YOU had something to do with that? “No. I was in the Great Hall during the feast. I even came over to your table to point out that you dunderheads were the reason Granger was off crying in the bathroom. And unlike you two, I actually followed the Headmaster’s instructions when he sent everyone back to their common rooms… even though the troll was supposed to be IN the dungeons! And I was surrounded by a dozen witnesses. Two of which were prefects. I literally carried Daphne Greengrass on my back the entire way down to the common room.”

“Then who let the troll in?” Weasley pressed. “Was it Snape?”

You shook your head.

“Look, stupid, no one let the troll in,” you explained, “It was already in the castle. Professors Quirrell and Kettleburn were keeping it in a storeroom down in the dungeons for the N.E.W.T level Defense Against the Dark Arts and Care of Magical Creatures classes. On Halloween, the charms keeping it locked in the storeroom failed and the troll got out. If you don’t believe me, ask some of the sixth or seventh years. They’re the ones that had the troll class.”

Weasley looked mollified by your explanation but Potter didn’t. Thankfully, neither of them thought to ask why those charms had failed. Professor Quirrell. But you weren’t about to voluntarily give them that information. The worst Potter and Weasley could do to you was hex you. Professor Quirrell would kill you.

“We know that Snape used the troll as a diversion to try and break into the Forbidden Corridor,” Potter insisted. “I saw what Fluffy did to his leg first hand.”

“Wait a minute…” you said, “the monster in the Forbidden Corridor is called Fluffy?”

“So you do know about it!” Weasley realized. “Then you know what Fluffy’s guarding...”

You didn’t. But you didn’t want to claim ignorance in front of the two Gryffindors.

“Of course I do,” you lied, “Everyone in Slytherin knows about it. I bet most of the Ravenclaws figured it out too. Wait a minute… does this mean you don’t know what it is? You have the great Hermione Granger doing your research and you still haven’t figured it out yet? Wow. I guess she’s not as smart as everyone seems to think.”

Potter’s mouth became a tight line and Weasley’s ears went red. You essentially just called them and Granger stupid.

Weasley’s temper gave way to your goading and he took the bait and tried to protest their ignorance. “We know it has to do with Nicholas Flamel!”

Fluffy? Nicholas Flamel? This was proving to be an incredibly informative interrogation session.

“Furnunculus!” Your head snapped to the side as Potter’s spell splashed against your face and a new batch of boils sprouted opposite the ones Weasley gave you. You glared at Potter and he glared right back. “That was for Hermione. She’s the smartest witch in our year. She’s worth ten Slytherins. And twenty of you.”

You blinked in surprise. Apparently, it wasn’t your insult toward his intelligence that pissed Potter off but rather your insult toward Granger’s intelligence.

“We know you did something to Hermione after the Quidditch match,” Potter continued coldly. “She said you had proof that Snape wasn’t trying to kill me… that he wasn’t the one jinxing my broom... and that he might’ve actually been trying to save me.”

“I was watching the match with a pair of Omnioculars,” you stated, “They’re magical binoculars that’re used to watch Quidditch matches. They can slow down the action, provide the name of different maneuvers, and even replay short bits of the game. And if you can spare a few extra galleons then you can even get a pair that will save scenes so you can rewatch them later. The most interesting scene that I saved that day was of the jinx on your broom fading well before Granger set fire to Professor Snape. I let Granger see that scene for herself. Your friend was obviously worried since I had evidence of her setting an innocent professor on fire so we came to an agreement and I overwrote that scene. Now it’s gone forever.”

It was during your explanation of Omnioculars that you realised Granger hadn’t told her friends everything that happened between the two of you. This interrogation attempt showed you that Potter and Weasley didn’t have very much tact. That meant Granger had likely been too embarrassed to tell her new friends that her knickers were the price she paid for you to get rid of that incriminating scene.

“Snape might not have been trying to kill me but he’s far from innocent,” Potter insisted. “Hermione said you wouldn’t tell her who was actually jinxing my broom. But you’ve still been covering for Snape this whole time. That means you’re his accomplice.”

“I still think it was this git who jinxed your broom,” Weasley imparted, “How else would he have known the exact moment the jinx was undone?”

Wow. They were so focused on Professor Snape being their culprit that he wouldn’t even entertain the idea that someone else was behind it. In their minds, it had to be Snape and anyone who tried to prove otherwise was guilty by association.

“Did you just accuse me of attempted ****?” you wondered. “You do realise that fancy, top-of-the-line broomsticks like the Nimbus Two Thousand have anti-tampering charms that prevent people from cursing them. It’s one of the things that make them so expensive. Not that you actually bought yours. It would take an extremely powerful wizard to overpower those charms. Let’s also factor in that I was once again surrounded by witnesses who will tell you that I was watching the match just like everyone else. There was even a prefect sitting on the bench beside me. So if you think I could not only cast that kind of powerful magic but do it without being caught… then you’re giving me way too much credit. I suppose I should be flattered that you two think so highly of me.”

“More like lowly,” Ron retorted. “You’re a liar and a thief. You and Snape. I reckon that’s why he favors you in Potions.”

“He favors me because I take the class seriously and put in the work!” you snapped. You glanced past them at the vial of blue fire that was still burning on the desk. It was evidence of the work that you put into your studies.

Weasley looked back and spotted the flames, “Oh, those’re the Bluebell Flames that Hermione can make.”

“The same ones she used to set Professor Snape on fire,” you stated, “I figured if she could cast that spell then I could too. And wouldn’t you know it, I got the spell down in a few hours.”

Potter kept his wand trained on you while Weasley turned away and went over to your fire. You weren’t sure what the redhead’s intentions were. Maybe he planned to snuff out your flames in front of you? Maybe he wanted to smash your vial? Maybe he wanted to keep it for himself?

His intentions became irrelevant because the second he touched the glass vial he let out a loud, pained scream. “YYEEEEOOOWW!” Weasley staggered back in pain and clutched at his wrist. You could see in the light from the blue flames that his hand was already starting to blister.

A wide grin spread across your face. The Flagrante Curse. It worked. And ironically, Weasley wound up being the test dummy for your curse just like you said.

Potter turned away and called out to his friend in concern. “Ron! I thought that fire was supposed to be safe to touch?”

And that’s when you saw your opening. Weasley was once again serving as a distraction. Only this time it was for your benefit. You lunged out of your chair just as Potter was turning back around and tackled the smaller, skinnier boy to the ground. You quickly rolled off him and grabbed your wand from where you dropped it then channeled your irritation at being jumped and jinxed as you pointed it at Potter’s face and gave it a jabbing twist. “PUNGO!”

Potter cried out and rolled away from you clutching his face which was already starting to swell from your Stinging Hex.

Weasley was still holding his burned hand so you quickly turned your wand on him, gave it a long swish followed by a shorter one and called out, “Fliiiiiipendo!” The purple light from your charged jinx didn’t just knock Weasley back but BLASTED HIM across the room.

You ran and grabbed your school bag off the desk you left it on and threw it over your shoulder then turned in time to see Potter starting to get back up. One of his eyes was starting to swell shut. You hit him right on the forehead with the Stinging Hex. Right beside his famous scar. But then you directed your gaze downward and pointed your wand at Potter’s foot and gave it a long, sweeping wave - dooown, riiight, up, left - “Colloshoo!” Potter tripped and fell on his swelled face as your Stickfast Hex stuck his shoe to the ground. Gemma recommended you learn that one after she stuck Graham Montague to the broom shed.

With the two Gryffindors dispatched, you abandoned your cursed vial full of Bluebell Flames on the table and rushed out of the room. You made sure to hide your boil-covered face with your arms as you raced by the portraits on your way down the stairs.

Fluffy and Nicholas Flamel.

Potter and Weasley provided you with two interesting clues toward what was being hidden in the Forbidden Corridor. And since you just crossed the third spell off of your ‘To Learn’ list… it looked like solving the biggest mystery at Hogwarts was going to be your next project.

But first… you had a Boil Cure Potion to brew.

Marvolo Gaunt House Point Ledger

Current Total: +66

Points awarded by: SS, RH, QQ